CONFERENCE
Bearing Witness: Seeking Justice
Videography in the Hands of the People
The Greater Boston community is invited to attend this conference at MIT, October 5-7
Collage: Cell phone image (Getty), with still from a video of police violence
“We’re encouraging people in the Greater Boston area to attend, including young people, concerned citizens, community-based organizations — everyone who cares about democracy, media, justice, and truth-telling."
— Tracie Jones, Assistant Dean for DEI, MIT School of Humanities, Arts, and Social Sciences
For more information, or to register, visit Bearing Witness.
As the presentation proposals rolled in this spring, it was immediately clear that the conference "Bearing Witness/Seeking Justice: Videography in the Hands of the People" had struck a chord. Academics from all over the world were vying to participate; submissions had come in from Brazil, Haiti, India, Israel, Ukraine, the United States, and more.
“These people have real concerns,” says Kenneth Manning, the Thomas Meloy Professor of Rhetoric and of the History of Science at MIT and lead organizer of the event, which will be hosted by the Comparative Media Studies/Writing (CMS/W) section within MIT’s School of Humanities, Arts, and Social Sciences (MIT SHASS) on October 5–7 at MIT.
With cell phone recording devices in everyone’s hands, Manning explains, “we now have something that individual people, children, teenagers have within their grasps to reveal things we would never have been able to see. We have to think about the implications of that for everybody.”
Image: iStock
This gathering is not only for academics. We really need a broad spectrum of voices in the conversation. That’s the way we can learn and make progress together.”
Videography as a political catalyst
The Bearing Witness conference will build on scholarship and public policy that began to emerge as a result of the Rodney King uprisings of the early 1990s. It will also serve as a reflection on the powerful role videography has played as a political catalyst more recently, notably sparking the Black Lives Matter movement in the wake of George Floyd’s 2020 murder at the hands of police.
“That was a transformative moment. It has changed how people look at situations like this throughout the country,” Manning says. Video recordings by ordinary citizens such as Darnella Frazier, who was just 17 when she filmed Floyd’s death, have shone a spotlight on police killings of black men and women, he adds. “People need to learn from it and go forward and develop the tools to help us have racial justice in this country.”
Using videography to “bear witness” is also of global concern — as reflected by the many international conference submissions. “Think of the war in Ukraine today. We would not even know what was going on without video in the hands, not of TV and government people but in the hands of individual people,” Manning says. “It’s been a political game changer.”
The Bearing Witness conference, open to the public, will provide a forum for diverse constituencies to hold an open discussion on power of video — both for revealing abuses of power, as in the case of Floyd’s murder, and for encroaching on civil rights, such as through surveillance.
Conference Poster
The keynote address will be delivered by award-winning media-maker Sam Gregory, the program director of Witness, an international nonprofit that helps people use video and technology to protect and defend human rights.
Work for the community and the world
While the full agenda for the conference is still being shaped, the keynote address will be delivered by award-winning technologist, media-maker, and advocate Sam Gregory. Gregory is the program director of WITNESS, an international nonprofit that helps people use video and technology to protect and defend human rights.
The event will also include virtual components to ensure the broadest possible participation. “The work we do is not just for MIT but for the community and the world,” says Tracie Jones, Assistant Dean for diversity, equity, and inclusion in MIT SHASS, and an event organizer. “We’re reaching out to and encouraging people in the Greater Boston area to attend, including young people, concerned citizens, community-based organizations — everyone who cares about democracy, media, justice, and truth-telling. This gathering is not only for academics. We really need a broad spectrum of voices in this conversation. That’s the way we can learn and make progress together.”
Organizers particularly hope to draw young people to the event. Representatives from the Somerville, Massachusetts, school district have already agreed to participate in the conference, and additional activities for young people are being planned, Jones says. “We really want to invite a broad spectrum of voices into this conversation,” she says.
For more information, or to register, visit Bearing Witness.
Suggested links
Conference: Bearing Witness: Seeking Justice
Videography in the Hands of the People
MIT Comparative Media Studies/Writing
Homepage: MIT SHASS Belonging and Excellence
Witness: Human Rights Video
The Witness group helps people use video and technology to protect and defend human rights.
Kenneth Manning
Thomas Meloy Professor of Rhetoric and of the History of Science
Story prepared by MIT SHASS Publications
Writer: Kathryn O'Neill
Editorial and Design Director: Emily Hiestand
8 June 2022